davidthedesigner

enough penguins, already

So I'm going to wrap up this week with just a couple more covers - otherwise this blog is going to turn into something that it's not intended to be (whatever that is). And I felt that I had to escape from the penguins. But it's not been easy. I've had to search high and low through my bookshelves to find anything that I was prepared to post up here.

This is quite charming, isn't it? Complete with its tea cup stain. But it comes from another age - 1960 to be exact (that was before sexual intercourse began, according to Philip Larkin). Because we had loftier ideals then: educating Johnny foreigner (and no, not that one). Here's what it says in the introduction:

"English books are written for the English, who have spoken English since they began to speak, and have read English since they began to read. They are not written for the foreigner.

In every school in the world in which foreigners are learning English, the teacher is crying out for books that will bring to the foreigner who is learning English some of the pleasure that the English classics bring to the English boy and girl."

Still, never mind, the summer of love would be coming along soon. And speaking of love, here's another cover from 1960:

With a wrapper designed by Adrian Bailey, it's "the story of a boy's physical infatuation with a girl whom he does not love".

And thus an empire was lost (if my father was to be believed).

poetry please

Here's the little gem that I told you about yesterday: a Penguin Poets cover. It's so lovely that I was inspired to photograph it in the AceJet 170 style. But, sadly, my diddy digital camera wasn't up to the job.

So here it is full frontal, instead:

This one was published in 1958, so the cover was probably designed by Stephen Russ, although it's not attributed in the book itself. And here's the equally lovely back cover:

But I'm only scratching the surface here: if you really want to know all about The Penguin Poets series of covers, you need to head on over to Richard's collection. And you can find out more about Stephen Russ from Graham Day.

three more penguins

When I started with the book covers on Monday I thought I was embarking upon a purely random choice from my bookshelves. But now I see that the first six covers I've chosen (in fact seven, because I've got a little treat for you tomorrow) have all been Penguins. And it's not a coincidence, as I see when I go back to the first book I plucked from the shelf: The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck, the 3rd edition published by Pan Books in 1967. And the cover's awful. So dreadful in fact that I'm not going to show you. So well done Penguin for supporting designers and good design over the last 70 years and more (as if you need me to tell you that).

So three more covers from the "it's what you leave out that's important, not what you put in" school of design:

Nice and subtle this one: the book's all about a world paralysed by genetic mutation. This one published in 1965, and with a cover illustration by John Griffiths (and I can't find out anything about him, I'm afraid).

Next is this from 1970, with a cover design by Minale/Tattersfield/Provinciali (who have subsequently become mintat in our url-important world). It must be many a year since Penguin could afford their fees, I'm guessing.

And here's simplicity taken to the extreme, with this cover design by Derek Birdsall from 1973.

two for the price of one

It's not in the same league as the Billy Liar cover, but here's another by Tony Meeuwissen that I thought you might like to see. This one's from 1971 and the back cover blurb describes it thus: "In unravelling the facts behind his father's duplicity - which include an odd relationship as a trooper with a mysterious Count de Gallatin and eccentric entry into the banana business - Ackerley also reveals much of himself".

Hence the two bananas.

But 1974 was clearly a vintage year for Penguin covers, because look at this little beauty. Designed by David King, with an ink drawing by Ernst Neizvestny (who, among other things, designed  Khrushchev's tomb).

ch ch ch ch ch changes

Once bitten, twice shy: last time I tried altering the structure of this blog it all ended in TypePad managing to lose all of my images. But another year's gone by and it can't go on like this. I know that I need a way to pull together the 26 or so posts that will eventually complete the '52 fonts you could use instead of Helvetica' series. And with over 18 months of blogging under my belt, I can see from my statistics that there's some buried treasure that's no longer seeing the light of day. So, as a tentative step, I've put some new headings over there on the right.

First up is a link to my website: because when I'm not davidthedesigner I'm mr celsius - and I'd like some more work, please. So if you know someone who's after a good designer, do me a favour and point them in my direction.

Next, I'd like to remind you of the golden rules of dealing with text when you're getting it ready for typesetting. Just some plain, straightforward advice on how to go about things. It's taken me thirty years to learn that little lot - and now it's your's for free.

And then there's that lovely set of old enamel signs that I photographed at the Beaulieu International Autojumble last September. They don't deserve to be buried away, do they?

Which brings me on to my next challenge: getting to grips with Flickr. I won't bore you with details, but I've had log-in problems which have always beaten me. But I won't be beaten no more. And so, dear friends, I've gone and managed to set up a Flickr account which will be coming to your screens soon. But first, some content: and so I've decided to open the doors on my book collection and show you some ace cover designs. This is the first:

Designed by Tony Meeuwissen in the early 70s (this edition was published in 1974). A clever chap Tony Meeuwissen - you can read more about him over on the D&AD site.

This design was a pastiche of the Wills Woodbines cigarette packaging - and a pretty close copy, as you can see from this:

Interesting that in 1974, a cigarette pack can be referenced in this way, and that everyone at the time got it. It illustrates the power and influence of design, I guess.

But, actually, one of the main reasons why I think this is an ace cover is that the back is as well considered as the front:

 

Another cover tomorrow. Be sure to come back, won't you?

the great fedex favicon debate

The answer has to be:

Surely?

we shall know them by their favicons

God is in the details: so said Mies van der Rohe. Which in his case meant that the door handles were just as important - if not more so - than the atrium. And it's often what marks out great graphic designers as well - that fanatical attention to the detail. But, it has to be admitted, that commitment can sometimes be lost on clients.

Because the tiny details are the things that happen at the end of the process. And it's all too easy to dismiss them as unimportant, or too irksome if we're up against deadlines and budgets. But you can bet your bottom dollar that the man in the street will notice, even if only subconsciously.

Now everyone who uses the web will use a web browser and will use bookmarks, won't they? And when they do, that tiny piece of detail that they'll see every time they visit a site, or scroll through their bookmarks, will be the favicon. And that's the thing that will - eventually - stick in their minds. Which makes it all the more surprising that they're often given so little thought. Or perhaps it's us designers, thinking "well what I can do with 256 pixels?".

But very often they're not thought about at all. Which is why there are so many websites which don't have them. And then you get those (mostly household names, mind) that think it's just a matter of sticking their logo in the box - a big, big mistake. You want proof? Well try these for size:

Volvo

Orange

Tate

BBC

And consider what happens when you take a really great logo - one that 'puts a smile in the mind' (once you know the arrow's there):

Stick it on a favicon and look what you get:

When all the time the most obvious solution is staring you in the face.

And goodness knows what was going on over at Random House the day they thought that this might do the trick:

Which is a surprise, because publishers have had years of practice with this sort of thing. Because they had to find ingenious ways to make there mark when all they had was the width of a book spine.

Now the designers among you will probably know that this is a front cover designed by David Pearson:

But there's just one little thing (well lots of them, actually) that tells you that this is a book published by Penguin.

A reminder to us that Jan Tschichold certainly knew his stuff.

But where are the good favicons? I hear you ask. Well, not surprisingly, often on designers' own sites or blogs. Here are just a few:

If you want to know more about favicons and how to install them, you can do some reading up just here.

And if you want to create your own favicon (once you've got your artwork ready), then you can do that for free just here.

urban earth

This is a time-lapse movie of a walk of 26km to the centre of the city of Salisbury, and I urge you to watch it. It was made last weekend by Daniel Raven Ellison and represents the distance that one would need to travel in order to cover the city of Salisbury's ecological footprint (as opposed to its urban footprint which is a mere 2km). So if you've ever wondered what impact you yourself were having on the planet, this gives you some idea. A big one.

More details on the urban adventure blog.

i blame it on the summer of love

Call me old-fashioned if you like. But I remember the days when people chose a career simply in order to put bread on the table. Yes, you might take pride in your work, but for most it was simply a question of 'another day, another dollar'.

But that hippy dream we all had in 1967 gave rise to a bastard child it seems. Because 41 years down the line nobody is allowed onto the shop floor until they've been fired up to become passionate. Passionate about printing, passionate about making cakes, passionate about brewing beer, passionate about selling you credit card debt. And passionate about giving out parking tickets, no doubt.

But I've seen it all when the man you call out to service your boiler can't do his job properly until he's become "passionate about plumbing".

I wonder whether he has pipe dreams when he goes to bed at night?

the times they are a-...

So, I've got to T - and I was trying to find a way of avoiding Times. Because (and do please correct me if I'm wrong) Times is the serif equivalent of Helvetica. It surrounds us. We see it everywhere. Sometimes used well. But more often than not, used without thinking - simply because it's there. It's successful though, there's no denying that.

And, talking of success, I really can't avoid including Trajan - can I? Because it's found its way onto this blog before: and more than once, which is more than you can say for every other font in this series. It first appeared here last summer. Then, just before Christmas, Richard put me on to the little video about it being the movie font (which is well worth watching again). And if that weren't enough, it tried to sneak in early by masquerading as a J-font. So, love it or loathe it, it has to be here, doesn't it?

Designed by Carol Twombly for Adobe in 1989, it is - as they say - a modern classic.

My second T wasn't quite so easy to decide upon, though. There are lots of fonts that begin with T, that's for sure - like Tabitha, Taffy, Talking Drum and Tom Boy. All useful if you've got to knock out a poster for the village fete, say. But nothing much to get a serious designer's juices flowing.

I was sorely tempted to include Torino Italic after Mike Dempsey sang its praises last week. But, as beautiful as it is, I thought we needed a little grist to counter the 'perfection' of Trajan. Here instead, therefore, is...

The first cuts of Trade Gothic were designed by Jackson Burke in 1948. He continued to work on further weights and styles until 1960 while he was director of type development for Mergenthaler-Linotype in the USA. Trade Gothic does not display as much unifying family structure as other popular sans serif font families, but this dissonance adds a bit of earthy naturalism to its appeal. Trade Gothic is often seen in combination with roman text fonts, and the condensed versions are popular in the newspaper industry for headlines.

There we are then - suited to a T.